Andrew Zusman is a user experience designer and blogger. He is a graduate of Netcraft Academy, an institute for user experience education, and a UX designer at Inkod-Hypera. He is an alumnus of Indiana University. Andrew is a native Hoosier, but currently resides in Tel-Aviv with his girlfriend and their dog, Indy.

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I’m new to the “creative” world. I’m used to being paid a monthly salary and going about my business, but I’m considering full time freelance (aka “my own business”). I’m never quite sure how much to charge for things and up until now I have two general principles:

1. Never work for free

2. Never work with friends

The first part of this is fairly simple. I don’t generally ask people to do work for me for free, and I’m not volunteering. “This will look great on your resume” is, as far as I’m concerned, generally irrelevant. My resume isn’t paying the bills but my time is.

The second rule here comes from experience. My friends are really great people, but they’re friends and not business partners. It’s difficult to work with friends because you feel like you are always stepping on toes and it’s awkward to get paid by people you know.

That said, I don’t particularly like asking for money, discussing money, or getting paid. I do, however, like having money in my pocket. Quite the conundrum, yes?

Well, today I offer you all (for free!) three links to help improve the way you feel about payment, pricing, and all things legal.